Grateful

As always, it has been a long time since my last post!  But man has life been hectic!  Since march, which was my last post so much has changed.  Our daughter, Evangeleen, was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis and JEEEZ LOUISE, CF is a horrible and time consuming disease!  We have spent over a month in the hospital since then, both of Evangeleen’s lungs have collapsed, her lungs have been infected with MRSA, B-cep, and psuedomonas bacteria, she has had failure to thrive, her teeth turned black and so many times we thought she was going to die!  We went from 8 kids to 2 kids through COVID lockdown then back up to 12 kids and now back down to 8 and Lord willing up to 9 with 1 more on the way in the new year.  We had Chompoo come to help.  We experienced a revolt in our house and have seen hearts and minds change as well.  We have seen stress levels raise to unheard of heights and lower to impossible lows.

So, we had a few kids leave our house over the course of this year, some stayed for a short time and some stayed for a long time before they left.  Pim, was our new girl from the On Nut slum, her mother was murdered and she was still mourning the loss of her mother.  Her father came with her and some people from our old church in On Nut.  

Pim

Pim, stayed with us for about 2 weeks before she just couldn’t handle being away from her father.  Her father was her only family and she didn’t like the experience of trying to make new friends, at a new school during COVID.  She stayed about 2 or 3 weeks and then her father came to take her home.

Kwan

Kwan, came her with MooNoy, her cousin. She also had the problem of missing her family.  When she came here her family was in a hard spot with no jobs, in a bad neighborhood and a fear that Kwan would get caught up in the same stuff that MooNoy had got caught up in.  Kwan lived with us for about 3 months and we encouraged her to pray for her family, and she did.  We were able to get jobs for her mother and father with the Norton family and move them to Sukothai and out of the ghetto they were living in.  She was not happy here because she missed her mother and father an it showed.  We made the hard decision of sendig her back with her parents in Sukothai and now she is happy again.

Chia, 8 yrs old

Chia, Kwan’s little sister who is 8 yrs old.  Just like Kwan, she missed her mother and father.  She cried every night for the 3 weeks she was here.  She was a joy in the day and so much fun to be around, but at night it was tears for hours and hours making it hard for everyone to sleep.  Her parents decided she was too young and took her back.  Her and her sister are both happy now and doing well in school in Sukothai with the Norton family.

Finally, Tankhun.  Tankhun had been with us for over a year.  He begged us to let him come and live with us because the school was like a jail.  While he lived here he learned things that he had never learned in his life, like cooking cleaning and how to make friends.  He decided that he didn’t want to be here and he left.  We miss him dearly.

These have not been easy situations and have left holes in our hearts and in our house.  After all has been said and done, it has been the best decisions for them and our house.  The atmosphere of our home is so much better and the risk of Evaneleen is much lower.

That leaves us with only one new kid this year and that is MooNoy.  We were so afraid of her coming but at the same time knew that she needed to come here and be with us.  We saw her FB page about april of this year and it frightened us and made us second guess if we were making the right decision.  We decided to put it into God’s hands and let Him make the decision.  Moonoy had disappeared in mid April and her family had not seen or heard from her and assumed she went deep into the drug world.  She did.  She was gone for quite a few months and showed up, after a lot of prayer from people all over the world, a week before she was supposed to come to our house.  Since, she arrived she has been amazing!  I asked her why she came, she replied, “Because Jesus changed my heart, I don’t want the same things that I wanted before.”  She has said many times since that this is the first time in her life that she has ever had goals or dreams for her life.  We have seen her change so much!   

Teacher Chompoo

She is Homeschooling with Teacher Chompoo and it has been amazing for both of them.  We have seen her go from untrusting and unloving to very loving and trusting of all of the adults here.  When she first got here she said there was a problem with her brain and now she is the best home school student we have.  God has really blessed us with her and now she wants her 11 yr old brother to come here as well.  Her mother was in a motorcycle accident and part of her brain was removed, her father is a drug addict and is in and out of jail.  Her brother has already dropped out of school and there is no one to encourage him to go.  Please join us in prayer for her brother, Ging.

All of the other kids have been doing well.  We have 4 kids in school and 2 got 4.0s, 1 got 3.15 and on had very bad grades.  We knew he would get bad grades when they switched to online learning because we had attributed him getting good grades to him being off of his phone, but when the school went online he had to be on it all of the time.  Preaw also graduated from the GED program this term and now she is weighing her options for her future, trying to figure out what God wants for her.

Evangeleen, was stuck at 7 kgs from 8 moths old to 16 months old and now she is knocking on 11 kgs with these 3-4 kgs coming after July when we were able to meet a CF Dr in Thailand.  With the right diagnosis we were able to get her the right meds and now she is steadily gaining weight.  Her lungs are finally looking better and she is healthier than she has ever been since conception.  This has been the hardest thing we have ever had to deal with and has been a real growing experience.  We preform 4 – 8hrs a day of treatments and physio on her each day.  We cannot bring her to church or around many new people, the mucus in her lungs that does not come out easy traps diseases in their and they grow and attack her.  Most people do not understand CF and think we are crazy or overprotective, and we are on both accounts, but they don’t understand why.  

There have been so many miracles that have taken place in out lives since march and so many people have helped us in so many different ways.  We are so grateful for all of you who have helped support us prayerfully, emotionally and monetarily.  Everything that we are going through and doing is not possible without all of you!  This year our lives have been hard but have been awesome and we praise God everyday for His loving mercy!

3 Comments

  • Judy W.

    We might be able to help you out around the first of the year. Please let me know what your needs are. Do you still need help with sponsoring kids education at the academy? If so, how many and will they come live with you when they know they are sponsored? (Is this what keeps the additional children from coming now?)

    If you could get back with me when you have a free minute…of which it sounds like you have very few! I’m in no rush. There’s plenty of time before the end of the year.

    Sincerely,

    Judy

Leave a Reply to Judy W. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *